Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday December 20, 2012 @08:15PM
from the getting-the-scoop dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Nataly Kelly writes in the Huffington Post about Google's strategy of hiring Ray Kurzweil and how the company likely intends to use language translation to revolutionize the way we share information. From the article: 'Google Translate is not just a tool that enables people on the web to translate information. It's a strategic tool for Google itself. The implications of this are vast and go beyond mere language translation. One implication might be a technology that can translate from one generation to another. Or how about one that slows down your speech or turns up the volume for an elderly person with hearing loss? That enables a stroke victim to use the clarity of speech he had previously? That can pronounce using your favorite accent? That can convert academic jargon to local slang? It's transformative. In this system, information can walk into one checkpoint as the raucous chant of a 22-year-old American football player and walk out as the quiet whisper of a 78-year-old Albanian grandmother.'"

The main thing he says he will be working on is artificial intelligence that can understand "context". The goal is for Google search to be able to find pages etc based on what you mean rather then on word counts of what you type.

Many of the "language processing" problems the OP describes are actually "cognition" problems. If Google is serious about algorithmically translating from "academic jargon to local slang", then they're looking at writing an AI which can in some sense understand what is being said.